Leo Kingsland Cox
Role Leo works as a part-time faculty member at Bullworth, where he coaches the school's swim team, offers training to students, and occasionally takes up prefect duties at Dr. Crabblesnitch's request. Character Description Leo is a 44 year-old man of abnormal height and bodily proportions. His complexion is dark, and his skin is dappled with irregular stretch marks anywhere from his stomach to his shoulders. His fingers, toes, arms, and legs are unusually long. His torso is unusually shaped, although the fact that he's slightly overweight and muscular hides how oblong it is in proportion to the rest of his body. On his chest, he as a scar from a past surgery replacing his aortic heart valve. Generally, Leo keeps his black, salt and peppering hair trimmed to short curls with a side fade. He usually wears a thick beard to hide his weak chin and round, chubby face. He has a lot of body hair, particularly on his chest, arms, and legs. On the school campus, Leo will almost only be seen wearing a white faculty gym shirt, sweatpants with the classic Bullworth blue and yellow scheme, and running shoes. During the winter, he wears the matching sweater over top of this usual outfit, along with black gloves and a toque. In town, he wears a similar outfit without the Bullworth branding, such as a black t-shirt, dark sweatpants, sneakers, sometimes changing out the sweatpants for cargo shorts. During the winter, he'll wear jeans and pullover sweaters. Characteristics Leo is something of a loner, and tends to either spend most of his time alone or with his family. His wife was the social one, and he unknowingly relied a lot on her to get him out of the house and interacting with other people. Without an outside influence to force him to socialize, he just doesn't, which is another reason he's still single so many years after being widowed. He can be intimidating at the best of times, what with his height, build, and tendency to not speak for long periods of time. But, most days, Leo is a pleasant person to deal with. When he's coaching, one might glean a different impression however - his time as a U.S. Naval Lieutenant granted him the skill and experience to bark out orders and shout (mostly harmless) abuse, although he tries to balance positive and negative reinforcement in his coaching style as much as possible. Needless to say, he isn't the most popular coach at Bullworth. Outside of his coaching, he's a generally soft-spoken man. He only raises his tone above 'indoor voice' levels when he needs to. He leaves his work at work, and sees snapping/barking/shouting to be just that. Strengths Leo is confident, despite his lack of socialization to back it up. He knows fully well that he doesn't have much to be embarrassed or self-conscious over, and his socialization skills aren't entirely useless, even if he doesn't practice using them as often as most people. He's a determined sort, which has gotten him farther in life than he probably should've gotten on account of his health. But he's been able to recover from most everything that's tried to drag him down in the past. His mental and physical adaptability has contributed to this success. Weaknesses Leo has a genetic disorder called Marfan Syndrome, which affects the connective tissue in his body. When he was young, he was tall and quite thin because of it, which got him into working out to try to build muscle, and eventually led to him joining the U.S. Navy. Because of this genetic disorder, he's had (and will continue to have) health issues. He's already had his heart valve replaced after his became deteriorated, and he has aches and pains in his back and lower body almost daily. Leo's loner personality also means that he doesn't get out much except for work, family visits, or household chores. Social Standing Leo doesn't have the highest social standing in the town, or even on campus. As he sticks to himself more often than not, he has hardly any friends, and has made no progress in climbing the social ladder at Bullworth. What he's most known for is scaring the teams he coaches into acknowledging his authority, and being one of the more 'handsome' faculty members on campus. Luckily, Leo doesn't care all too much about social standing. Personal Life Romantic Relationships Leo is single, having been widowed for nearly a decade. His wife passed away after suffering fatal cardiac arrest. He hasn't entirely gotten over her abrupt and unpredictable death, and so he hasn't done much dating since. Familial Relationships Leo's relationship with his family is pretty sturdy. Growing up, his family was well-sustained, if not strained when they had to move from Los Angeles to Bullworth. His parents live in Old Bullworth Vale, not in Happy Endings Retirement Home, despite their older ages. They're able to live in a home because Leo makes time every couple of days to visit them and help out around the house where they need it. He has a good relationship with his sister, Ella, who is a single mother of her daughter, Hannah Cox. He refused to let his sister struggle in raising Hannah, and frequently helped her with house maintenance, finances, and occasionally looking after Hannah when Ella needed a break. Leo, who has always wanted children but never did due to his career and health and his wife's abrupt passing, will often treat Hannah like his own daughter. He does what he can to spoil her with allowances or shopping trips, and he tries to be the positive male influence in her life. Home Life Leo's home life was well-structured and strong, to the effect that he still cares for his parents in their old age. He, of course, went through the usual rebellious phases of a young man, but he did his best for his family before and after his time in the Navy. Presently, Leo lives alone in Old Bullworth Vale. His sister has offered for him to move in with her and her daughter out of fear of what may happen to him in his lonesome lifestyle, but he's refused the offer. He's quite content alone, and has converted his spare rooms into an office, a home gym, a library, and a spare bedroom for visiting family. Most of his time is dedicated to working out, planning out training programs for the folk he trains at the Glass Jaw Boxing Club, or helping his parents maintain their Old Bullworth Vale house. Background Leo's mother, Kitty Cox, was a successful lawyer in Los Angeles. However, after a particularly talked about 1960's case in which she defended an alleged gang member, Kitty made the decision to move her family out of state and away from her infamy. Leo's father, Ronnie Kingsland, was an accountant from England (who carried the Marfan gene which he passed onto Leo.) He'd elected to stay in Los Angeles after marrying Kitty, instead of moving back to England, and wasn't fond of jumping from country to country until they finally landed in Bullworth, where the family stayed for a decade and counting. Ella Cox, Leo's sister, pursued first the accounting career path, but quickly followed in her mother's footsteps instead to become a lawyer. Leo, however, had no such ambitions, and made no concrete plans for the future. At 20, after working a dead-end job to help pay for bills while still living with his parents, Leo joined the Navy. After a few years, he wanted to climb the ranks. He did about four years of military training before returning to the Navy, where he was approved for a promotion to Lieutenant about a year later. Leo was discharged after a routine physical uncovered his weak aortic valve, which in turn helped to diagnose him with Marfan Syndrome. The health disorder only promised more health issues to come, and he and his superiors knew he wouldn't perform well for as long as they needed him to. Not too long after returning home, his wife passed away. He gradually became more and more of a recluse. He'd had multiple jobs at once to keep himself busy including landscape and construction, with the only consistent position being his job as a personal trainer at the Glass Jaw Boxing Club. Once he's given a position at Bullworth, he drops all other jobs to just focus on personal training and his on-campus work. Literary Features/Related Pages * Quotes Under construction. Images Under construction.